Title: Kids these days, Jesus these days
Kids these days, Jesus these days
Mark 10:13-16
*This is the original text of the Children's Sunday Sermon on May 6, 2007.
As always, it must be well engraved, read and listened to.
Emperor penguins live in a cold neighborhood. They mate in the coldest season, even in the coldest neighborhoods. And two months later, the eggs are laid, and the female does not eat anything during those two months. After laying the eggs, the male takes over the eggs, places them on their feet, and covers them with a belly to protect them. The females leave the males behind and walk towards the great distances of 100 km in search of food into the sea. In the meantime, males endure the cold of minus 40 degrees Celsius and blizzards at 100 km/h for two months. So, it's a story that even a female walks that long road with pain for two months. When the female returns with food in the feed bag, the male now takes turns marching. For 230 days like this, the penguin couple sacrifices themselves for only one child.
Korean parents are no less than emperor penguins. The sweetness of newlyweds ends when they have children. All life is changed to be child-centered, and life plans are reorganized to be child-centered. There is a public education, but depending on it alone, the child is held and wrestled late into the night with the fear that the child will not be able to live in the world. Even the last name is not enough, so the couple splits up with the child and becomes a family of gooses going abroad.
So, is it enough to finish education? no. If I can't find a job on my own, my parents have to look into it. Old parents have to walk around crawling here and there. Then is it over? no. Marriage should be done by the parents. You have to build bridges here and there to find a woman, and you have to have a coma and a decent wedding, even if you're in debt. Even if you are chartered, you need to provide an apartment for your children to live in.
Then is it over? Whether working alone or working alone, when they give birth to children, they have to wash the diapers of their grandchildren again and take care of their daughter-in-law and son. Some eccentric parents go further here. When my son goes to the army, he has to use his hands to keep it from rotting, and even if he fights a young bastard at a bar, he has to run and beat him with a gun.
good.
If parents made sacrifices for their children like the emperor penguin, shouldn't their lives be happy? In Korea these days, children are a kind of investment. When I hear the stories of parents saying they have to send them to a special high school, it's roughly like this.
good.
If parents made sacrifices for their children like the emperor penguin, shouldn't their lives be happy? In Korea these days, children are a kind of investment. When I hear the stories of parents saying they have to send them to a special high school, it's roughly like this.
“If you suffer now, you will choose the main story for the rest of your life, so why bother?”
good. So, using his children as a source of investment, he went all-in with his life. Then what do you do? What does it mean that a son who makes a lot of money gets his mother-in-law, a son who has learned a lot is taken away by the country, and a son who lacks a little is his mother? After living like this, there is nothing left to take care of. There are sons and daughters-in-law who care about their parents and daughters-in-law, but our society is not a structure where the old and the young live together. So, don't the elderly go back and forth like a ping-pong ball between the eldest son's house and the youngest daughter's house, and then get dumped in front of the police box?
2000 years ago, Jesus rebuked those who wanted to be exalted, and the paradoxical teaching of “these people will occupy the kingdom of heaven” toward women and children who live without respect, and those who have been driven out of power in religion and society. Following the wishes of the mothers who had just brought their children to Jesus to do this, he took the children in their arms and said, “Just like these children! The children of that time were not like our children today.
Even in ancient Egypt, when the Hebrew people lived as slaves, children had to be sacrificed before adults. Not only did the children have no strength to resist, but they did not belong to the human axis. In the case of sacrifices made to the field, children had to be sacrificed first rather than adults. Isn't that the command to kill infants, "When the Hebrews give birth to a girl, let them live; but if they give birth to a boy, throw them all into the river" (Ex 1:16)
More than a thousand years later, all boys under the age of two in Bethlehem and the surrounding area were slaughtered. “The sound of Ramah, the cries and mourning, Rachel weeping for the loss of her children, she refuses to even comfort her!” (Matthew 2:18).
When I visited a concentration camp in Germany a few years ago, I saw a mountain of toys from a genocide scene. It was painful to see the shooting scene and the gas chamber murder scene, but it was even more heartbreaking when I saw the toys the dead children played with.
Even now, of course, it is true that there is sadness and pain to see children on the verge of death from starvation, nakedness, and disease on TV or in photos. Not to mention the slaughter of hungry children in North Korea, not far away. In addition to North Korean children, there are also tragic family stories of poverty wrought by poverty in South Korea. Yesterday was Children's Day, so I followed my wife when she went to the mart to buy children's underwear. When I asked if there were any children who still had to buy underwear, he said that the difference between living well and poorly was greater than in the past, and the more we go into the countryside, the more such children. Where is that? We also hear about the tragedy of children who were suffocated in a fire while a dual-income couple left their children in a semi-basement rented room, locked the door, and went to work. A mother who is not a stepmother has gone insane and the marks of abuse she inflicted on her children often expose the cruelty of humanity. The reality is that the evils of being carried with the iron and stabbed with an awl and starving for several days are all over the place. Moreover, the reality is that the atrocities of men who sexually assault even children as if to go away from aid dating are not diminishing.
But, gentlemen, these things cannot be said to be caused by the savagery that we do not treat children to as human beings. Isn't the suffering of children caused by poverty or unhappy family histories rather because they exalt children in order to compensate them for the constant desires of adults? Children are being abused again because they live with children and their own children as investment targets. It means that raising a child is the opposite of raising a child well.
2,000 years ago, Jesus exalts people who are like children. However, our society now supports children. It is doing so as an investment object. No parent regards a child as non-human. So, Jesus’ words, ‘Be like children!’ are not true in our society today. Because kids these days aren't the kids of the past. We need to lower our thoughts, which are raised by desire, and change the way of life of adults who only support children. 2000 years ago, Jesus said, “You have to be like children.” But this morning Jesus says to you and me,
“Adults, look at reality. And be selfish and boldly break the chains. You have to set an example for your children to live well, not for them to live through them. To do this, instead of investing in your children, focus your time and financial power on spending the rest of your life meaningfully. Visiting children should not be the only pleasure. Don't go around your children. It just makes people who can't do anything without the help of others. Do not stand up and raise the club yourself because your child has been beaten. It is to create a fragile human that will die by surprise when an ant in the field bites it. Don't hand over property to spare your parents the hardships they've been through. It takes away valuable experiences that are the foundation of life. Don't dedicate yourself to your children and expect nothing in return. Children are probably free guests.”
Children are no longer victims of society. have become the perpetrators. They are playing the role of the masters of society, not the oppressed minority. In Japan, the number of teenage rapists per 100,000 people is 1.1. The United States has 6.5. In Korea, the number is 11.5.
Dorothy Fisher, an American author and children's educator, said, "Mothers aren't things to lean on, they're things to make you don't have to." British philosopher Bertrand Russell once said, "A father's fatal flaw is to want his children to glorify him." “Raise the kids a little higher. For these people, there is a heaven.” Jesus tells us today and in our society to declare and practice this. “Son, daughter, I have done enough. Now, live your life on your own terms.” Isn't this saving people and families? Isn't that a way to truly elevate people?
I heard a story from a scholar who said that children should not only visit Everland or Children's Grand Park on Children's Day. That way, your child will only know that life is like that. Conversely, take them to the funeral home and let them know their sorrow. It was to make them know that with death there is life. It is said that in the old days, when grandparents passed away, they naturally went through sorrow, parting, death, and life, and formed the right self. But the death or grief that children experience these days is a pet or a game. It is a kind of play and entertainment. That's why kids these days think that killing or dying is a joke or a game. If we die together, then we all die together. It's easy to die. Kill it, then kill it. Because it's a game. They do things more horribly than adults. These are the kids these days.
In the old days, Jesus was like this.
“Can you treat them like they are not human? should be valued. Because heaven belongs to those people.” This statement is correct in the social background of the time. But now Jesus is not saying that.
“Don’t be too proud of the kids. Don't pour your children into your life as a good investment. It kills you and kills your child. Look at reality and break the chains. That’s what truly honors your son or daughter.”
Those who live life with this attitude, are not burdensome to each other, and show what a happy life is like, will get to heaven.